Can you really call yourself a feminist if you want to go and see the Magic Mike UK tour?

Feminists! Do you want to go and see the new Magic Mike UK stage tour in London in November? If your answer is a firm 'WHOO' followed by 'HOO', then please proceed to the next question: Do you think men who go to strip clubs are gross?

If you found yourself meekly nodding, then welcome to the frustratingly complex double standards of stripping: seedy and exploitative for women, a bit of a laugh when men do it.

Of course, double standards are an integral part of the female experience, but in this post #metoo landscape, where it feels we are attempting to sculpt out a level playing field for the genders: should we allow men to be as exploited or degraded as we believe female strippers are?

The crucial question is, of course, whether you believe stripping is exploitative at all. Many find it empowering, even more an art form (just look at burlesque). Nudity itself is trapped within a maelstrom of contextual factors; when boobs walk down the catwalk, it's fashion, when they’re in black and white at the Guggenheim, it’s art; when they’re on stage in Soho, it’s exploitation.

What about male nudity? Naked male torsos can be found on any beach, or any British park or high street when the temperature hits anything above twenty degrees. We’ve put the male form on plinths for centuries. What about Michelangelo’s David? Is he art? Or has poor Dave been publicly degraded for mass consumption?

A lot of this is down to the eye of the beholder. Perhaps if a hen do sat outside David, screeched at him and got wasted on Chablis through willy straws, we’d think differently. But you cannot ignore the ideological weight of the male gaze in particular.

Why we struggle with female strippers in a heteronormative environment, more so than their male counterparts, or nudity in a queer space, is that it comes with a historical backstory; millennia of women reduced to nothing but sexual currency by straight men. It’s also hard to see their naked forms writhing for male enjoyment, when the threat and reality of sexual abuse is so potent. Whilst #metoo has been accused of being overly precious, it has opened up our eyes to how widespread and everyday sexual misconduct is. That is hard to ignore when you see men salivating at stripping women. The threat of lecherous women taking their whooping willy-straw enthusiasm to the next level is not as palpable a reality.

113 thoughts I had watching Magic Mike Live

Lindsey Kelk

Entertainment

04 May 2017

Lindsey Kelk

Yet what is it actually like to be a male stripper? I ask someone who spent time as a Butler in the Buff if he ever found his job exploitative. Though his experience is by no means universal, he feels it’s easy to get too precious about it all. “I got to run drinking games with girls whilst wearing a pinny,” he laughs, “It was great fun.” Though he does point to one experience where a drunk mother in law grabbed his balls at a hen do, his response is somewhat pragmatic: “Any work like this is essentially exploitative, because you are selling visual stimulation and flirtation. If you don’t want to run the risk of someone grabbing your balls, don’t be a stripper.”

Of course, for many people, it’s not as simple as that, and stripping is often the only recourse for those struggling with real poverty and addiction. As ever, it is also the power dynamic that comes to play here; men can never feel as sexually threatened in these situations as women, nor so reminded of the gulf in equality that still exists in perceptions of gender roles. Yet it’s also tricky to firmly label any one action as objectively exploitative, with no concern for the freedom of choice for the many who love and voluntarily opt for this line of work.

So, where does that leave us? Does it fly in the face of true equality to go and see Magic Mike, to order a Butler in the Buff or go to Chippendales? If you ask this feminist, I would say no. It’s not the act itself that is degrading, but our response. Respect the men on stage, just as you would like to hope that a woman, voluntarily taking her clothes off on stage, does so feeling safe from harm or abuse. This is no doubt wishful thinking on my part. We do not live in a perfect world but, if male stripping offers a place for freedom of expression (chap-less or otherwise) to be safely and considerately explored, perhaps it’s our duty to show up. Willy straws optional.